


In Daunt

by Jalec



Category: Shadowhunters, Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, jalec - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-23 15:37:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6121201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jalec/pseuds/Jalec
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jace has learnt of Alec's feelings and needs to discuss the situation that they now find themselves in, not only for Alec's sake, but also his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This will not be strictly platonic and familial. You have been *dun dun dun* warned.
> 
> Only tagged in Shadowhunters (not The Mortal Instruments) because I imagined the characters being the ones from Shadowhunters and behaving, speaking, looking, and having the nuances that those characters and actors do.
> 
> Did I go to all this effort to write a scenario where Jace and Alec are able to get "into bed" together? Maybe. Did I also go to all this effort to write a scenario where these two get to talk about their feelings which stops Alec from being in pain? Definitely.

Describing Alec as trepidatious would have been lacking comprehensiveness. Not only was he also anxious, but angry and empty too. Angry at the fact that the memory demon had outed him. Empty because without a secret to hold onto and the boundaries and roles in his life defined, he had no idea of knowing what would become of him.

The first thing Alec saw when he stepped into the hotel room was a blond boy shorter than him looking out the only window on the other side of the room—Jace.

The space was small with barely enough room for the bed, which was decorated with all-white linen, and the small, low-to-the-ground cabinet that lacked a television. There was a round table crammed into the corner and two metal chairs beside the window which Jace was observing the train tracks and skyline through.

The door thunked behind Alec, giving him a fright. By the time he turned back into the room after securing the door, Jace had also turned and was looking at him, with crossed arms. He looked like he wanted to say something profound to quell both their uncertainties, but all he could muster was "you came," words he never thought he'd utter. If someone had told him that Alec— _his parabatai_ —would have considered not coming when he had asked, he would have considered throwing them to the ground.

Alec nodded the slightest of nods, then his eyes darted away from Jace to the wall and he folded his arms. He still felt ashamed.

Jace looked, surprisingly, less glum and more affirmative than Alec.

"Alec?" His tone was comparable to that of a stranger who thought they'd spotted a long-lost friend out of the corner of their eye, and called their name just to check; wary and curious, but hopeful. When the stranger didn't respond, Jace was prompted to uncross his arms and step forward. Alec responded with haste by taking a similar-sized step backwards. A surge of dread passed through the younger and shorter of the two. Jace arced his gaze down to the floor and bared his teeth, angry at himself. It took him a moment, but he was insistent on trying again.

"Alec? Look at me." It was a plea not answered. "Look... I know I'm not usually..." Jace sighed. "Interested in asking questions first?" He thought, in combat and matters of life and death it was easy to know what do - move quickly and ask questions later or be overcome and killed. The need had not arisen for him beforehand where it was necessary to tiptoe around certain topics and think before speaking, but discussions of emotion like this one required decorum and sensitivity. Jace's tactical side knew that.

In a roundabout way, trying to not impede on the length of space between him and Alec, Jace sat down on the edge of the bed. Alec moved as he did, along to the edge of the room and then to the window.

Alec was taller than Jace anyway, but the blond boy lowering himself to the height that the bed was at exemplified an innate understanding of both humans and animals, though not demons, that in doing so they were willing to relinquish the upper-hand by opening themselves up to being attacked easier. It was a strategic move; an attempt to garner Alec's affinity by making him feel like he was supposed be in charge.

"I want you to help me understand," said Jace.  _Need and want_. Though Alec had moved past the bed to Jace's original spot and was looking out the window, Jace's gaze was trained squarely on his parabatai. In an almost pleading-come-apologetic tone, Jace said, to Alec's back, "Please."

For a moment that lasted just slightly too long, nothing. Then Alec turned, slowly, continuing to clutch his elbows with his hands. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. He had pictured many instances in which Jace and him spoke candidly and about  _them_ , but not in a way which could very well, from his perspective, have been described as interrogatory.

Jace removed his leather jacket, rolling it off his shoulders to reveal the plain black t-shirt underneath. It was in the blond boy's nature to be overt, Izzy would have used the word _forward_ instead, but he did try to remove said article of clothing in a way that was not particularly sexy, seeing as it was really not the time to tease Alec like he would with anybody else who had been revealed to like him. His fingerless biker gloves and tactical boots, both also black, followed, thrown to the corner of the room with little regard for any sense of order.

Jace shuffled over on the bed so that he was on the side closer to the door. It was possibly a way of putting a barrier between Alec and the exit. Then he brought his feet up and reclined. It was a move made graceful by his particularly tuned muscles; a necessity for any shadowhunter.

"What are you doing?" asked Alec. If anything could un-stun him, it would be his need to question most things Jace did.

"Lie down," said Jace, patting the empty side of the bed with a smile that could only be described as cheeky, like a child trying to lure their friend over to them by teasing  _I know something you don't but I'll tell you if you come here_.

"Why?" If Alec had a quota of things-which-would-make-him-leave-and-close-himself-off-again, it was beginning to be filled.

"Just lie down on the bed," Jace insisted. When Alec didn't move, Jace said "Just lie down, look at the ceiling, not at me, and when you're ready to talk, we'll talk. I'll do the same, no pressure. We can stay as long as we need to." He spoke not like a principal trying to mine a confession out of a student who refused to admit they had done anything wrong, but rather like the person he never knew until now he was, one that, out of concern, was willing to wait for another person to begin a dialogue, but not push them to it.

"The Clave—"

"Will not know. And will not care if we're just lying on a bed together, Alec. My parabatai, my—" Jace halted himself before he finished the sentence.  _Brother_. He gritted his teeth and pressed his eyes closed with knitted brow. "My  _best friend_  is what is important. Not some antiquated rules."

Alec glimpsed at Jace through a squint. He was both surprised and impressed by his parabatai's scholarliness, enough so that the use of the term best friend seemed to take a back seat in his mind.

"But what about—"

"The Institute?" Jace interjected. "Nobody will mind we're gone. I promise." His expression turned from serious and somewhat cunning into a hearty smile. "I know how you think,  _parabatai_."

Jace didn't realise it, but of course the irony was that that statement was barely even a half truth.

Alec moved...slowly. He was going to lower himself onto the bed when Jace pointed at his boots.

"We're shadowhunters, not cavemen."

Alec rolled his eyes. The sass was not something about Jace he disliked—except for maybe when he was the one being sassed.

Like Jace before him, Alec removed his jacket and tactical boots. He descended onto the bed next to Jace and settled with interlocked fingers resting on his chest, rising and falling with his steady breaths. He looked up to the high, white ceiling and was silent.

For a good 15 minutes, the two stayed like that. The thoughts that passed through the boys' minds were two sides of the same coin. Alec pondered what he should say to Jace and what he needed to ask to ascertain a new platform which made sure both of them were happy. He considered what he needed to tell Jace to be fully honest with himself, now that he had nowhere and no excuse to hide.

Meanwhile, Jace thought about the questions that he thought he would be asked, and wondered how honest he could be with Alec when he hadn't even considered, in the privacy of his own mind, many of the myriad of things he thought would come with  _being in love with your straight friend who've you been raised with like family._

Out of the corner of his eye, Jace noticed Alec's lips part.

"I'm sorry."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the angst! It wasn't my initial intention, but I've changed what I wanted to write, which also means the addition of a fourth chapter.

Jace wanted to break the declaration that he was so adamant about and sit up and look up at Alec, but he feared if he did so Alec would not only roll his eyes, but roll off the bed and leave. He wondered if the next most appropriate course of action was to ask why Alec was sorry. Or if the next after that was to say that that was okay and that he forgave Alec. He grabbed the mattress to both brace for impact and stop himself from sitting up.

"You don't have anything to be sorry about." His voice quavered out of nervousness as he spoke, but he was sincere.

It was not particularly Alec's style to trust others at face value. "I do," Alec said quickly. Even though he had agreed to stay, he had just figured that Jace felt like he had been wronged and thus required an apology. Alec didn't want to have a dramatic, heart-felt discussion. He wanted to say sorry and have Jace forget everything. Then he could go back to suffering in silence, which had worked for so many years prior.

"You don't."

"I  _do_ , Jace." Alec spoke with his jaw clenched like he was losing his patience and adding to his quota again. There was heat in his lungs, like anger in the form of mist. His mouth betrayed his mind, and he added involuntarily, "It wasn't fair to you."

Jace was surprised, but also frustrated. He sighed. "Not fair to me? Alec, of all the situations I can imagine—"

"I could have ruined you," hissed Alec. His voice quavered not because he was nervous like Jace, but because he wanted to be angry at himself. He felt like the mist was travelling up his throat. He had expended so much energy on hiding, fighting, repressing, that he couldn't muster anything more than the misty anger; intangible and so easily blown away by a breeze. His voice was empty as the feeling escaped his mouth instead. Anything more than his short rebuttal may have made his eyes water in addition to sounding defeated. "I'm just...sorry," he said.

"Stop saying you're sorry." Jace bit the side of his cheek. He wasn't losing patience with Alec's whole attitude so much as Alec's persistent and unfounded belief he had done something wrong. "Just tell me what you mean. Please," he said calmly, as aside from being annoyed, he was also legitimately confused.

"I could have ruined everything you've worked for. Everything with the Institute. Your reputation. If...anybody had found out."

"You mean the Clave?"

Alec huffed. "Do you know what they do to parabatai who..." He wanted to say _fall in_ _love_ , but was still unsure about whether Jace was comfortable with that. It was one thing to say you love someone like a brother, but acknowledging something romantic out loud was undeniably and inherently different, especially when it was one-way. "Get...together?" He waved a hand and stopped Jace before he could respond. "I know we wouldn't be together-together, but the Clave wouldn't care. They'd hear something and go with it. Send us to opposite sides of the world."

It was true that the Clave hardly ever listened to logic. In spite of the unavoidable fact that there was a profound lack of shadowhunters in the world since the loss of the Cup, 'justice' was always all-encompassing and over-reaching, making the number of angelic protectors ever dwindle. If the Clave were to find out, Alec may have been the one in love with Jace, but by all their illogic, Jace would be a party in something illegal and thus just as guilty.

"And not just that." Alec was determined to illustrate every negative facet of the law in order to better explain his point to Jace. "They'd forbid us from contact. That's if they didn't excommunicate and shun us completely. You'd be barred from institutes, your steles taken and runes stripped. You'd never be allowed to see Izzy or Max or Mother again."

Jace knew. It was outlined when the two decided they would become parabatai, though as with most things the Clave was involved in, in a very convoluted way, vaguely threatening but wholly ominous. But he was more baffled now by how Alec had managed neglect mentioning himself in the entirety of his spiel.

"—Or you," Jace added. "I'd never be able to see you. Neither would your family."

Alec scoffed. "I wouldn't care for that, Jace. It would be my fault. I deserve it."

Jace wanted to seethe. How could Alec say that he wouldn't care if he was separated from Jace? Romantic or not, they were parabatai, bound together by choice in service of each other and something they greater.

"You don't mean that." He spoke with authority. "You'd never say that about your—"

"Parabatai? Brother?" Alec interrupted. He was terribly sick of the use of the latter. He was not Jace's brother. He was Isabelle and Max's brother, and the son of Maryse and Robert. "You're not my brother, Jace. You need to stop calling me that." Instead of mist, there was ice in his veins; cold and sharp.

Jace sprung upright, teeth bared and looming over Alec like a grey cloud. "Why? Because you're in love with me," he said angrily, grinding his teeth over his words. "And because brothers—and parabatai—can't love each other how you love me?"

Alec pushed himself up too, invading Jace's personal space with an enraged look in his eyes. "Exactly. I'm glad you _finally_ get it."

It was exactly what Alec had expected would happen, despite Jace's earlier pretence. Jace was always one to break rules, but never the law. Things, for him, were black and white, wrong and right, hard and easy.

Alec snatched his things and headed for the door. Jace's skin bore a speed rune, so he was able to place himself between the door and Alec before Alec could leave.

"Get out of my way."

Jace put his hand on Alec's chest. It was intended to be preventative like a blockage, but its place over Alec's heart was the epitome of appositional. He bowed his head and blinked back whatever it was that was in his eyes; he couldn't look up to meet Alec's gaze.

"I think I knew."

" _What?_ "

"I think I've known for a little while," Jace said.

Alec threw his hands up in the air, exasperated and just...tired. It was the last thing he wanted to hear, not just then, but for all time. If being outed by a demon wasn't bad enough, then having someone tell you something you were trying to hide was so easily identifiable to them was ten times worse.

"And you didn't say anything?"

"Neither did you."

"You know why I couldn't. I just  _told you why_. I could have ruined both our lives!" Alec threw his jacket across the room and his boots to the floor. He didn't like being accused.

" _If_ I didn't agree to keep it quiet;  _if_ I didn't feel the same!" Jace was yelling by that point, close up against Alec. There was something in his voice that made Alec centre his attention back on Jace. A plea; an admission.

"And do you?" It was the first time Alec had allowed himself to ask that question. It was easier and safer every other time to answer it preemptively; no, he doesn't.

"I...think so," Jace's voice cracked.

 


	3. Chapter 3

"I...think so. I don't know," said Jace, as he sat back down on the bed. He pressed his face into his palms, rolling them over his cheekbones.

Alec was still standing, observing Jace from afar. He was sceptical of Jace's admission, but there was no way he could have ignore it completely and risk the only chance he might ever have to secure the one thing that he had always wanted. Alec sighed and sat beside Jace. He didn't want to push him. If there was something there, he understood that most normal people wouldn't have wanted to say it aloud, let alone a shadowhunter.

"What do you know then?" he asked in a hushing way, signifying that it was perfectly okay for Jace not have an answer.

Jace sniffled. He wasn't crying, but he wasn't his normal, composed self either.

"When my dad died—" He cleared his throat a number of times before continuing. "Before my father passed, I had no one but him." Alec knew partly of Jace's situation. His own parents were strict, but compared to Jace's father, they were as kind as angels. "There was no room for love in his life. Nothing, not an ounce," Jace spat. "Sometimes I've wondered how he even found someone to carry his child."

"You don't have to tell me any of this...if you don't want to."

"I want to explain," Jace said, eyes bloodshot and wet. "I had no friends, no brothers or sisters, nobody but him. Everything was a lesson. If they weren't lessons, they were beatings. There was nothing else." He wiped his eyes.

Alec wanted to say and do so many things, but all he could offer Jace at that point was his commitment to listen.

"'To love is to destroy,' my father would say..." Jace paused and took a few deep breaths. He sat up straight and looked blankly out in front of him. "What I mean— What my point is, is that I was never was never given the opportunity to think for myself. Or to... _feel_..." He was angry, for the first time in his life, for himself. Not on behalf of anyone else or for a higher cause, but wholly for his own well being, knowing that no child should be deprived of experimenting with something as natural as emotion.

The words prompted Alec's minds to consider something it had not done so before. When Alec and Jace met, both were young. All Alec knew when Jace came to live with his family was that he was a shadowhunter in need of a home - no second thought was given to it. But now, he realised that Jace had been conditioned and manipulated his whole life by his father; Jace was raised by one person, bathing in that one person's ideology, and being subject to that one person's rules. Whatever Jace had been taught had shaped his entire life and would not go away overnight.

It made sense. Jace had not had a relationship in all the time Alec knew him. He was flirtatious and forward, but he had never followed through even with any of the prettiest girls from the most noteworthy families in Idris, any of whom would have given anything to have him. He turned his adoration to the only person he knew well enough - himself - because his father had made him believe that caring in such a way for anybody else was wrong. Alec's parabatai had suppressed an entire facet of himself; the facet that governed something shadowhunters seldom spoke of - love.

"The thought never crossed my mind," Jace said dully. "It wasn't something I had to worry about."

"Who you were interested in..?"

"Yes," he said in a way that was soft and weak. "Not until...I don't know...I saw Izzy and Meliorn together for the first time? The way she moved around him like he was the Earth and she the moon. She never took her eyes off him. Even when we were speaking they looked like at any time the wind could've blown and they'd have just as easily folded into each other never to be seen again. It just made me think why I don't have that." It was true, but Jace bit his tongue to stop himself from uttering _why you don't have that_. "Then it was just a wave of realisation for the next few weeks, hitting me over and over again; everything I'd not had for years because of _him_."

Alec's love for Jace was undeniable, and no matter what anyone else saw it as—the names of agape, eros, philia were muttered in the parabatai ceremony, or by shadowhunters mocking the frailty of mundanes—they could not deny that the type of pride Alec felt for Jace at that moment was something only someone who loved another wholeheartedly could muster.

Jace looked at Alec first, and found his hand over the black haired boy's. Alec inspected it before returning Jace's gaze.

On the back of Alec's hand, Jace's calloused palm from the years he'd spent fighting with both his bare hands and crudely shaped weapons felt tough. It was not as romantic as Alec had imagined it. Whenever he thought of their hands together, he had always imagined their hands palm to palm, longer fingers winding around each other and then pulling their bodies closer. Then he would immediately cast the images out of his mind, savaging a part of himself every time he did so.

"Like every other part of me," Jace said as he looked into Alec's eyes, "I think those things that I've not had for my entire life have always been with you." He smiled. "I'm just sorry it took me so long to realise it."

Jace only made assertions when he was confident that they were the truth. That meant that his heartbeat was steady and his mouth was not dry - he was not nervous because of what he was saying, because he knew it was not a lie. On the contrary, Alec's heart was beating faster than any of the times he'd fought demons or watched the striking hand of the horrid Clave. He had, for so long, left half of himself in the safety of shadows. For all of his wants—his needs—to be looking to come to fruition at once was terrifying.

Jace tightened his grip around Alec's hand as his head slowly moved closer to Alec's.

The blond boy may have only come to realise something long suppressed inside him in the past few weeks, but other things, like his penchant for being a tease, he had known about himself for a long time. Similarly, he knew at least half of his parabatai well. Alec was not an instigator. Jace knew Alec would not make a move—and that was how Jace liked it.

Jace's other hand moved swiftly, and then was around the back of Alec's neck. It pulled Alec's head down so that the boys' foreheads were touching. Their lips were only centimetres away from each other.

Alec's anticipation presented itself not only in his rapid heartbeat, which Jace could hear, but also in slow, hot breaths which escaped his mouth erratically. He had to close his eyes for risk of losing control of himself. Alec was not usually an instigator, true, and in this case control of the situation and pace was something he wanted to let Jace have. But was it oh so hard for him to maintain his resolve. He did his utmost to keep his feelings of excitement and _want_  within him; to not exhibit them for Jace, but he couldn't contain them, and his bottom lip started to tremble.

To say Jace took pity on Alec would be the wrong use of words, but so apt upon viewing. He could see Alec's chest rise and fall; he could feel the heat of Alec's breaths on his neck; he could smell something like iron and salt coming from Alec. When he pulled Alec's lips onto his, it felt primal and right and like it was ordained by the Angels on High themselves.

No conditioning by an evil man nor the threats of an archaic garrison were able to hold those two apart in that moment. The world melted around them, and for the first time in forever both knew what it was like to be loved in a way only the luckiest of people ever were able to experience.

It lasted a time that was not measured in seconds, but by intensity, growing every moment.

Jace pulled away first, needing to inhale because he had forgotten to breathe. Alec was not having any of it, and would not willingly go without that taste again for so long as he was alive. Now that Jace had made the first move, they were equals, belonging more to each other than ever before. He chased after Jace's lips, grabbing Jace's nape like Jace had done to him before. Jace's lips were a drug that gave him a delirium that he knew, now that he'd tasted them, he would surely die without. They were a source of pure oxygen that tasted like rain water - Jace himself scented of water lily and pine and wet air, all the things Alec had only occasionally smelt when Jace had passed by him.

"Okay, okay," Jace panted when Alec finally and begrudgingly unlocked their mouths. He smiled, and was breathless. Alec smiled too, gleaming like the sun. "I don't want to stop, but I'm going to pass out if we don't," he chuckled.

There was no flurry of thoughts that entered Alec's mind. There were no regrets or worries. There was just perfection, and his lips had just tasted it.

If Jace had ever done anything to wrong Alec, he was not only forgiven, but he was now owed a debt by the black haired boy. A look came over his face. It was a look Jace seemed to misconstrue.

"Don't," Jace said, putting a hand on Alec's cheek.

Thou who creates perfection also can obliterate it, or so some ancient scholar once said. And it was exactly what the word did. Every bad thought, every possible negative situation, bombarded Alec and he felt black and rotten inside.

"What?" Alec's throat tightened as he braced for impact; as he prepared to be told that could never happen again, or that it had made Jace realise that what he thought he had divulged about himself was actually incorrect.

"Don't you do that. Don't you try to convince yourself otherwise."

Jace did know Alec, perhaps better than himself. He did, in fact, not misconstrue Alec's expression, but preempted the thoughts that would come later, when Alec was alone back at the Institute.

"There is no doubt in my mind, Alec, that what I just did was the right thing to do. You did not lead me on, nor did you trick me. I kissed you because I wanted to. Not out of pity, or experimentation."

A corny smile came over Alec's mouth. It was a reflex to something that made him truly happy, unlike the perfect smile that one would normally see. That was orchestrated, intended, and thought out; but this one thing was a window to the real Alec.

"I did that because I love—" Jace cleared his throat. "Because I am in love with you."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a fun little follow-up. Thanks for sticking with me; sorry it took so long to finish. This has been the first multi-chapter work I think I have ever finished. I call that progress!

Alec woke on his side, facing towards Jace and the window. Ever prudent, he roused slowly and without fuss, batting his eyelids a few times while remaining otherwise completely still and tranquil, and then he was fully awake. Another might have, in his situation, been more inclined to wake in a more skittish manner. However, Alec remained composed.

Jace was still asleep on his back, one arm resting on the pillow above his head, the other lost under the sheet which was draped loosely over both the boys' waists. Alec looked upon him, considering none of what had happened before that moment, but instead relishing the opportunity to observe and adore Jace and all his beautiful facets in solitude and a state of unfamiliar solace.

The morning sun was not something a shadowhunter typically saw from a bed; they were normally on a mission before dawn. However, in that moment, the sun outside seemed to seek out Jace. As if he was a beacon made of gold, a substance which was only made more beautiful by the glint of sunlight, the mid-morning rays found their way to him through the window sheers. They illuminated his skin with a particularly flattering glow; they emphasised the contours of the muscles on his stomach by casting shadows that pooled in every dimple and between every crevice. They made his blond hair look more golden, and his lips a light, pastel pink.

Maybe Jace felt Alec looking at him, or maybe it was just his body clock realising it was too late for a shadowhunter whose typical rinse-repeat schedule consisted of waking up while it was still dark to train and exercise to be sleeping in so late. Either way, he woke, the first thing he saw being the white ceiling. Without consideration of his environment around him, he raised his hands to his face and wiped away the gleam of sleep and its accompanying sense of contentment, giving rise to a slight of lucidity.

He didn't notice that Alec was awake, and so flitted into a position where his feet were touching the floor over the edge of the bed. He rested his elbow on his leg and dropped his head into his hand, which he used to comb the blond quiff away from his face. Still ironed from the pressure of sleep, all but a few stray strains of hair stayed spiked up. He looked to the sheers for a brief moment, but as his eyes were still sensitive he had to look away.

Alec didn't want to say anything, but rather wait for Jace to notice that he was awake. Remaining still and quiet would give him more time to study the fit blond boy with whom he had just slept with. It made him giddy, thinking about what Jace had said and what they had done the night before; the things they overcame. The state he found himself in was like a fairytale — two people who should not, according to someone else, have been together becoming involved during a night of candour, then waking up together in nothing less than beautiful and perfect bliss.

Jace turned to look back at Alec, expecting to find him asleep. He would have caressed the side of Alec's face—only because he could and Alec wouldn't have known; he still wasn't one to be known by others as gooey—and then nestled back into the sheets, where he would have gazed at his parabatai, taking in every dimple and freckle and line up close which he hadn't had the opportunity to do before.

Alec pressed his lips into a line, trying to hide his smile. Jace did the opposite, laughing through his words. "How long have you been staring at me?"

"A while."

Jace moved into a position mimicking Alec's, on his side.

Overnight, Jace's shadow had grown out to become a light dusting of blond stubble. It was a nice contrast to Alec's dark hair, both on his head and jaw as well as his chest.

"That was...fun," Jace said.

Alec looked shocked. "Fun? The great Shadowhunter Jace describing something not involving demons and swords as  _fun_? I don't believe it."

"Well," Jace smiled, "that kind of did involve swords."

Alec closed his eyes and groaned. "That was horrible."

Jace shuffled closer to Alec and pulled the older boy into a kiss. His hand caressed Alec's skin; it moved down from Alec's neck, over his pecs. He traced a finger down the ridge that separated Alec's abs. Then he flattened his palm down underneath Alec's navel and followed the trail of hair that led underneath the sheet.

Alec gasped and his body became rigid. Jace continued, eliciting moans and groans from the dark-haired boy.

When he was done, he traced his hand back up to Alec's neck. Alec shuddered when a finger lightly tickled the spot just above his hip - the spot where his parabatai rune was. 

Jace looked down at his own waist, where his own parabatai rune also was.

"Hmm."

Alec questioned Jace with a look.

"...The parabatai ceremony? When I drew that on you? That must have been—," Jace started.

"Awkward? Yeah."

"I was going to say interesting."

"Interesting?" Alec queried. "Well, as I recall, you said it was the only non-runed patch of skin you had at the time. I had no say in this! You didn't notice me rolling my eyes as I got down on bent knee and you pulled up your shirt?"

"No?" Jace wasn't entirely surprised by Alec's reaction though.

"I think you were too busy admiring your own abs."

"Hey!" Jace whacked his arm against Alec. "I feel what you feel so I can blame my self-appreciation on you."

"Your egotism," Alec corrected. "But no, you can't, because that took place a good few minutes before our bond was sealed. Not that it's that literal anyway."

"Ha, whatever!" Jace said with a sigh and a shrug back into the bed. He elbowed Alec in the side playfully.

"At least now I can admire your abs on a regular basis...and in a much more intimate setting," Alec said with a smile.


End file.
